This is definitely one of the more intense films I've ever seen. It is not for everyone but I happen to have a very dark, twisted sense of humor. If you're like me, you'll find this one to be a keeper. People who say that this movie isn't funny just don't understand destructive humor. The jokes are often vicious & brutal you'll find yourself laughing then wondering if you're a bad person for doing so.

A must-see (but not for the weak)

by Ula on 5/29/1999

One of the most intense viewing experiences I've had in a while, and possibly one of the most f'ed up and darkest films out there. It's a very believable and honest movie, which is exactly why it's so unsettling as it just cuts right to the bone with absolutely no reservations. You may not like it (and most likely won't unless you have a jet-black sense of humor), but you won't be unmoved.
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A great step

Intense

by Jeff Clark ~ debaser@mindspring.com on 6/7/1999

This is definitely one of the more intense films I've ever seen. It is not for everyone but I happen to have a very dark, twisted sense of humor. If you're like me, you'll find this one to be a keeper. People who say that this movie isn't funny just don't understand destructive humor. The jokes are often vicious & brutal you'll find yourself laughing then wondering if you're a bad person for doing so.
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Engaging, Intense, Incredible

by Paul on 6/11/1999

Todd Solodz has created a masterpiece. This film not only challenges the viewer (it even lost a viewers innocence), it entertains us. Solodz uses his masterful touch of dark comedy to describe the endless search for what we call happiness. An excellent film for those who are tired of the norm.
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Dark and Dripping with irony

Wow.

by bobclark@princeton.edu on 7/5/1999

A potentially unsettling film, that is definitely a comedy ... after seeing the film a few times now, I think of it as what would have resulted if Kurt Vonnegut was asked to write a porno. Good cinematography, great acting, but what sets this film apart (and alone) is the plot: a film full of pregnant ideas and none-too-subtle ironies that refuse to be easily reconciled. Wow.
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Solondz--Altman for the New Millennium

by Steve Patterson on 7/20/1999

The seedy underbelly of suburbia as only Todd Solondz dares show it. I love the inter-twining stories and characters--reminds me of something by Robert Altman--but with more grit.
I laughed and felt guilty for doing it--but will watch it again...
This one's a keeper!
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if you enjoy perversion...

on 7/24/1999

you will like this movie about sad people living sad lives. Everyone wants to be happy, but this does not justify one's desire to fulfill every lust that you have at the expense of others. But if you really want to be disturbed for a long time go ahead and buy it.
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HAUNTING AND HARROWING

on 8/11/1999

One of the rare films to break the taboo's of typical film content. This portrait of the desperate, searching lives of its lonely and troubled characters will live with you long after the movie is over. Every bit as repulsive as it is (disturbingly)funny, it dares approach difficult subject matter in a unique way. More willing to show the flaws of being human than any other film in recent memory. A triumph in cinema.
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An unsettling but satisfying movie experience

on 8/24/1999

Happiness is one of those rare movies that succeeds in being both darkly funny, incredibly disturbing, extremely thought-provoking, and vastly enjoyable all at the same time. The intricately interwoven character arcs and the shocking plot, combined with superb acting from every single member of the cast make Happiness a must see. The DVD version leaves a bit to be desired, as it's rather feature-deprived, lacking a great deal of interactivity and liner notes. The video transfer itself is not on par with modern DVD compression technology, and visible artifacting is present throughout. Regardless, the DVD is still of higher quality than the VHS version, and the movie is so good, DVD-philes will probably be too enthralled to notice the subpar transfer.
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Product Overview

Meet three sisters at the center of a struggle with the secret demons of middle class perfection. There's joy who is rebounding from a break-up with her latest loser boyfriend, helen a glamorous writer looking for drama in a relationship with a obscene phone caller and trish the housewife.

Specifications

Keywords

Editors Note

Note

Building on the darkly comic angst of WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE, Todd Solondz's HAPPINESS conveys suburban desperation and frustration on a larger scale than his previous film. The ensemble cast of characters centers around the lives of three sisters: Joy (Jane Adams), an awkward, naive, and unlucky musician; Helen (Lara Flynn Boyle), a beautiful, self-obsessed writer; and Trish (Cynthia Stevenson), a conservative housewife who is married to Bill (Dylan Baker), a psychiatrist harboring an unhealthy fascination for young boys. Other dysfunctional characters include the sisters' unhappy parents, Lenny and Mona Jordan (Ben Gazzara and Louise Lasser), and the lonely, sex-obsessed Allen (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who lives next to Helen and goes to Bill for therapy.| |At once both scathingly funny and shockingly bleak, HAPPINESS addresses subjects that most films are afraid to touch, including pedophilia and masturbation. Unapologetic and unflinching, Solondz's film features bold performances from the entire cast and makes for uneasy but intriguing viewing as it peers behind the fragile facade of the American dream.

Plot Summary

Summary

HAPPINESS fleshes out its grim stories through graphic portraits of aberrant relationships and individual obsessions. The film, centered around three sisters who struggle with the monotony of bourgeois life, leaves the viewer both laughing and gasping, hopelessly reaching for explanations for the behavior of the characters and the cruelty of their uncompromising circumstances. Pedophilia and dark sexual and psychological fantasies are featured as director Todd Solondz (WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE) drags each player in this brightly colored yet depressing party to the brink of their insecurities with marvelous precision and without qualm. The strong cast features Philip Seymour Hoffman, Dylan Baker, Lara Flynn Boyle, Ben Gazzara, and Louise Lasser.

"I bore people. People look at me and get bored. People listen to me and they zone out. Bored. 'Who is that boring person,' they think. 'I have never before met anyone so boring.'"--Allen (Philip Seymour Hoffman) to his therapist Bill Maplewood (Dylan Baker)

Quote

"I'm just so tired of being admired all the time."--Helen Jordan (Lara Flynn Boyle) to her sister Trish Maplewood (Cynthia Stevenson)

Quote

"Well, I may 'have it all' [makes quote marks in the air] but, you know, sometimes I wonder what my life might have been like if I'd actually tried to write a novel."--Trish to Helen |"I'm sure it would've been good."--Helen

"We all have our pluses and minuses..."--Allen to Kristina (Camryn Manheim), after she's confessed to a heinous crime

Quote

"So was Mrs. Paley sick, honey?"--Trish to her son Billy (Rufus Read) |"Well, everyone said she was just too strung out..."--Billy |"Now why do people say things like that?"--Trish|"Because she's a drug addict."--Billy

Quote

"I'm not laughing at you...I'm laughing with you."--Helen |"But I'm not laughing..."--Joy

Reviews

"...Unique and unmissable....HAPPINESS is potently funny and painfully affecting, often at the same time..." 10/29/1998 p.80

Entertainment Weekly

"...Tender, shocking, cathartically honest....Solondz leaves us giddy....Breaks through to haunted levels of erotic compulsion that place it close to the hypnotic artistry of BLUE VELVET..." -- Rating: A 11/06/1998 p.56

Aspect Ratio

1.85:1

Awards

Golden Globe (1999)

Todd Solondz, Nominee, Best Screenplay - Motion Picture

Reviews

ReviewSource

New York Times

Review

In Happiness, a much bigger film than his first [Welcome To The Dollhouse] and another murderous comedy of manners, Mr. Solondz gets even closer to the bone. His natural tendency to make audiences squirm leads him into material that wouldn't be mentioned in many other films; here, it's linked to the eating of ice cream sundaes. But Mr. Solondz doesn't seem to be straining for shock value when he turns the man in the sunny family portrait on the wall into the man who drugs his family's dessert. (His purpose: an assault on the son's young friend.) He fills Happiness with enough misery to make its most outrageous joke its title -- and with enough true, unexpected tenderness to warrant this view of the world.

ReviewDate

ReviewPage

Reviewer

Janet Maslin

ReviewRating

0

ReviewSource

Dallas Observer

Review

Weaving together myriad interconnected plot lines with more than a dozen lives, this gifted writer-director [Todd Solondz] has fashioned a bleak, brilliant comedy about loneliness, lovelessness, and alienation -- a film that constantly upends our assumptions about what is heartbreaking, what is hilarious, and what is both. Here's a graveyard of shattered self-esteem, a lonely crowd of walking-and-talking wounded that provokes, by turns, laughter and shocked silence. For 135 minutes this moviemaker sends us wildly mixed signals about what it means to be human; about the proximity of tragedy and comedy; and about life in a society where no one in a roomful of office clerks can remember the name, or the face, of a former co-worker who's just committed suicide and where an apartment-house doorman can wind up chopped into little pieces in an upstairs tenant's freezer. Happiness is risky business indeed. Now 38, New Jersey native Solondz chooses not to satanize a pedophile, but rather to turn him this way and that in the light, looking at all of his facets. Solondz neither idealizes nor mocks a seemingly Cleaveresque household in New Jersey; instead, he examines it with pinpoint accuracy, layer by layer. In his disparate characters, he shows us rage inflamed by sadness, isolation governed by impotence. He shows the excitement in the face of a needy woman when a Russian cab driver takes up a guitar and sings to her "You Light Up My Life," of all things, in an accent as thick as borscht. Anything to find happiness. We don't know whether to laugh or cry, but the emotional jolt is powerful.